


Tap on My Window, Knock on My Door

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jay Gatsby Lives, Not Really Character Death, Organized Crime, Possibly Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 00:30:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11817444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Gatsby smiled. It was the same warm smile he always used to wear, though a little tired. “Care to let me in, old sport?”Nick stepped aside and let him. If this was a ghost—which it well might be—it was still not a ghost he wished to expel from the house. Rather, it was a ghost which had already been haunting him for the past two months.





	Tap on My Window, Knock on My Door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trefoil_9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trefoil_9/gifts).



The funeral was closed casket, as was the wake. According to Wolfsheim, who apparently was in charge of Gatsby’s estate now that he was dead, the shot that killed Gatsby had been…messy. It had left his body not fit to be seen.

“I was in the war,” Nick told Wolfsheim. He’d seen men with their bodies ripped apart—some dead, some still living, patched together with sloppy amputations and stitches. He’d seen men gasping out their last after mustard gas attacks, corpses half decayed by the roadside. Dead men, dead women, even dead children. He’d seen death in every form and tried to respect it. In truth, he had become numb to it. He had seen comrades die and looked upon their dead bodies and sometimes been unable to feel any sorrow.

Wolfsheim smiled apologetically. “Gatsby wouldn’t want you to see him like this.”

“How do you know?”

“I was his closest friend, his confidant. And you know, he always liked you, always wanted to impress you. Told me you were a real gentleman and he had to behave good while you were around.” Wolfsheim shook his head. “You know how he felt about looks and appearances. Maybe it’s all a bit shallow, but…I can’t imagine he’d like you to see him like this.”

So Nick swallowed his pride, and swallowed also the desire to have one last look. He bid Gatsby farewell from a distance. It was still more of a good-bye than Gatsby got from anyone else, since no one but a single party guest actually showed up at the funeral, not even Wolfsheim. Nick figured he’d done his best by Gatsby, and there was little more anyone could ask for.

Two months later, he had begun to think about leaving New York for good. The city was depressing without Gatsby there. He called his family back in the Mid-West, and found many agreed with him—they missed him more than they had expected. And he began to make arrangements. He let the Finnish housekeeper go. He picked up the forms to resign his job, and every day he tried to fill them out, and every day it seemed a little too final. But they always sat on his dining room table now, waiting for the day when he admitted there was nothing left here for him.

And then one night, as he sat up reading a piece of pulp fiction (escapism appealed to him now), there came a knock on his door.

No one came to visit him these days. Hardly anyone had come to visit him in the past. He put down his book and answered the door, and there stood Gatsby.

Nick gaped.

Gatsby smiled. It was the same warm smile he always used to wear, though a little tired. “Care to let me in, old sport?”

Nick stepped aside and let him. If this was a ghost—which it well might be—it was still not a ghost he wished to expel from the house. Rather, it was a ghost which had already been haunting him for the past two months, though perhaps not as literally.

Gatsby headed for the parlor. He took off his jacket and left it on the tablebefore sitting down on the loveseat. Under the jacket he was wearing a pastel pink shirt. It was ripped in the shoulder and stained a deep red with hints of brown where the stain was beginning to dry.

“My God,” Nick said.

“Nick,” Gatsby said. “I don’t suppose you have any medical equipment?”

* * *

 

As it happened, Nick did have an extensive first aid kit. His family back home called it paranoia to carry around so many medical supplies, a leftover from wartime, but Nick just called it common sense. The world was a dangerous place, New York in particular. People got punched in bars and hit by cars. Sometimes they got shot by guns. Wolfsheim had claimed Gatsby was shot in the head two months ago, and now that didn’t seem credible, but he’d apparently now been shot in the shoulder, so at any rate the world remained a very dangerous place.

“Who shot you?”

Gatsby winced as Nick wrapped a bandage around the bullet wound. Nick had already cleaned it and removed the bullet, but it clearly still hurt like hell. Nick had no anaesthetic with him, not even alcohol, which had been Gatsby’s suggestion. The bullet removal had not been pleasant for Gatsby, and doubtless the wound would continue to hurt for weeks.

“Who shot you?” Nick repeated. “Are they likely to follow you?” He had a gun up in his room (again, common sense even if his family called it paranoia) but he didn’t want to use it.

“No. They don’t know about you…”

“Who are they?”

Gatsby let out another moan as Nick finished tying the bandage. Cringing away, he said, “The pharmaceutical business is more complicated than you’d expect. I have certain enemies. Very evil men, of course…they hate me because I have better business practices…not to mention certain heroic feats I performed in Europe, back in the day. They get you medals of honor but not a lot of friends.”

Nick growled. Still with the lies? He knew Gatsby was a bootlegger and had not performed any particularly marvelous feats in Europe—that much had come out on Nick’s birthday, on that singularly disastrous day of celebration. Of course he would have enemies in New York. And Nick could help him more easily with the truth than with a pack of excuses.

But Gatsby had his arms tucked across his chest, and he looked very vulnerable like this, shirt only half on to allow Nick to work on his shoulder, expression closed and unsmiling. What was it Wolfsheim had said again? _“He always wanted to impress you. Told me you were a real gentleman…”_

It was very stupid.

Nick shook his head. “And these enemies are why you pretended to be dead?”

“Yes. You see, it was very dangerous…You might not believe me, but George Wilson had connected with one of them, and we learned…well, I won’t bore you with the details but at any rate I needed to go undercover. I plan to come back, you know—possibly with another name and it might take another few years, but I do plan to come back. But for a while…well, it just wasn’t possible, old sport. You have to see that a man in the public eye…”

“I went to your funeral,” Nick said.

Gatsby swallowed. “Yes, I heard that. I heard not many people went.”

That was an understatement.

“I wish you’d told me. You could have trusted me not to tell anyone else.” Although what was he to Gatsby? Just a friend of a lover, just the man who lived next door. Not the type you tell a secret. Barely even a real friend.

No, Gatsby’s confidants were men like Wolfsheim, not Nick.

“I trusted you with this.” Gatsby pointed at his wound, an earnest expression on his face. “Please, Nick. I hope that you’ll forgive me, but I didn’t want to involve you in all this. I’m sorry to have involved you now, but you were the closest in the area and I didn’t know where else to go. And of course I’m very grateful.”

“You don’t have to be,” Nick said. “I’ll always help you if you ask for it.” He stood. “Let me get you something to eat and drink. No alcohol, but I do have some leftover dinner.”

“That would be amazing.”

Nick nodded. He paused at the door before heading to the kitchen. “Are you planning on staying long?”

“I don’t know…Well, I’ll leave as soon as you want, of course…”

“You said things are dangerous right now and no one knows this location,” Nick said. “Stay here. At least until some of the danger has passed.”

Gatsby nodded. “All right.”

* * *

 

The house had a guest bedroom, which Nick had never had a use for before. He made sure Gatsby was comfortable, not questioning him further. Sometimes it was better not to question a miracle.

The next day, Gatsby was physically weak but very talkative. He fabricated vague story after vague story about what he had been doing since faking his death—travelling to China, dueling assassins, tracking down smugglers and of course hobnobbing with very important people (“but it’s classified, old sport, I’m afraid I can’t name any names”). Nick ate them up. He wanted to believe them. They were much better than picturing Gatsby spending the last two months holed up in a safe house somewhere with the people who hadn’t attended his funeral—even if it was fake.

He asked Nick how work had been, how Jordan had been, how life had been, and listened carefully to the answers. He didn’t ask about Daisy. Doubtless he already knew about that: how Daisy had left for Europe with Tom, gone for at least a year. No need to talk about things now in the past.

In the evening he made a phone call. He spoke in a low, serious voice, the kind he never used with Nick, the kind that had a little bit of a threat to it. Nick stayed in another room, trying hard not to eavesdrop. He waited for Gatsby to hang up the phone and call him back in.

“The danger’s past,” he said briskly. “That was Wolfsheim I was speaking to and it’s all taken care of now. So no need to worry anymore.”

_Who did they kill_ , Nick wanted to ask. For he had no doubt it had been someone. A person who had tried to kill Gatsby, so not anyone Nick would mourn, but still a human being. And Nick couldn’t even say he was confident the other person had struck first—for all he knew, the murder attempt had been only a counter attack, an attempt at self defense. He knew so little about Gatsby anymore.

“I can leave now, if you want,” Gatsby said. “There are places I can go, now that it’s safe.”

Nick shrugged. “You can stay.”

He didn’t push it. Gatsby was dangerous, and he would bring danger with him. Moreover, even if he had come here for a safe haven, it didn’t mean he would want to stay—Nick didn’t want to cling to a man just because he had been able to provide medical help. He had no claim to Gatsby, after all.

But Gatsby lit up. “Really? Well, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you…”

“I’d more worry about people figuring out it’s you and you’re alive. We’re very near your mansion.”

“Oh, it will be fine,” Gatsby said. “Well, I’ll need to go into the city to do business…but I would be immensely pleased to stay here, immensely pleased really…Only if it’s no bother, of course. I can pay for room and board.”

He looked pathetically hopeful.

_“He always liked you,”_ Wolfsheim had said.

Maybe Nick was more than a casual acquaintance to him after all.

“I’d be glad to have you,” Nick said. “Though I can’t cook very well, I should warn you, and my housekeeper’s gone. And the place isn’t much.”

“It’s fine. It’s…classic, really. Very much like you. I always thought it suited you.”

“Then stay,” Nick said. “It would make me happy.”

“Really? Well, I can’t believe you. But I will stay…I must thank you very much, old sport, you are far too generous…”

“Oh no, I’m not. And you’ll be no trouble, really. No trouble at all.”

* * *

 

He made a call back to his family again. He told them he would be staying in New York for a while longer, and he hoped they wouldn’t be disappointed.

And he took his resignation papers off the dining room table and put them in the trash.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the challenge of one character showing up wounded at another character's doorstep, fandom unspecified. Sooo...I'm in a mafia kind of mood basically so here you have gangster Gatsby who got himself shot. Lots of fun.  
> Comments and kudos are much appreciated!


End file.
